Category Archives: change management

IT is from Venus, the Business is from Mars

Posted on 02/04/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Monday morning and another week for IT and the business to work together in the best interests of the organisation – though if you were to read this article from the Wall St Journal, you might think otherwise.

The  piece, “IT is from Venus, non-IT is from Mars”, by research scientist George Westerman from the MIT Centre for Digital Business, suggests  that in many companies, the relationship between IT and business leaders is a very troubled marriage. Miscommunication is rife, leaving executives struggling to figure out what’s working for the company, what’s not, and how to improve the situation.

The article argues that ‘the marriage’ can be saved, provided IT and business executives have a clearer understanding of the needs of both sides, how they work and the challenges they face. That means business leaders and IT executives must talk with each other about their operations and about how IT can help the company fulfill its goals, instead of talking past each other about how one side or the other is preventing that from happening.

The article cites four separate studies by researchers at MIT that show that transparency—clear communication about IT performance and decision processes—is the best predictor of the business value of IT. These studies all show that transparency creates an environment that improves both IT performance and the IT/Business relationship.

The article discusses four areas where IT and non-IT executives fail to understand each other clearly, and how transparency can help bridge the gap between two completely different interpretations.

On IT Cost and Performance:

The Business says: “IT costs too much; we’re not getting the service we’re paying for.”

IT says: “Given our budget constraints, we’re doing really well.”

On Risk Management:

Business says: “I want it this way.”

IT says: “We can’t do it that way.”

On Prioritisation:

Business says: “I need this right away.”

IT says: “Sure, but three other executives just told me the same thing.”

On Accountability:

Business says: “Why do you make me go through all of this bureaucracy?”

IT says: “Our methodologies are how we make sure everyone does the right thing.”

The article concludes that “creating transparency takes extra time and effort on everyone’s part, especially IT’s. But this is one project that definitely pays. Transparency around performance and decision processes improves the business value of IT and builds trust between business and IT people. As everyone learns to work better together, IT becomes part of the company’s business-level decisions and initiatives, not its own world. When that happens, the marriage of IT and the business side is really working.”

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, CIO, IT and the Business, IT projects

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Standish Group: the role of the executive sponsor in IT projects

Posted on 30/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

The US-based Standish Group has published a series of excellent pieces on its blog over the last few days over the role of the executive sponsor in IT projects.

The blog features an interview with Eugene Bounds, senior vice-president at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Bounds says, “I was first reached by the then current executive sponsor of a project called “RightIT.”  RightIT helps organisations optimise their IT investments.  The project combined the capabilities of IT, PM and cost.  He had the expertise in IT and he wanted my expertise in programme management and finance.  I eventually became the executive sponsor for the RightITTM project. 

“The first thing I did was to establish frequent and standard meetings; so, every Friday we had a team meeting.  My commitment is to be available for guidance and status reviews.”

Bounds adds, “As executive sponsor of the RightIT project, I thought it was critical to understand who on the leadership team would be affected or could gain benefit from the RightIT project.  I then reached out to these colleagues to establish an advisory group. 

“As part of the advisory group, I established monthly meetings.  This gave me an opportunity to get direct stakeholder feedback and support.  If we were producing an artifact, I wanted their thoughts on it to make it better.  I wanted to make it packaged and ready to go.  Of all the things I did as an executive sponsor, this was the most important.”

“The problem is that project managers have their own view and language.  The project manager looks at the project tactically.  He or she looks more in the weeds of the project or the details to try to get it done.  The executive sponsor tends to look at it as a strategic event.  He or she will look at the project on how it aligns with the goals of the organisation. 

“In the project management profession we have our own language and plenty of acronyms.  So there is a gap and it really is up to the project manager to fill the gap.  We cannot expect the executive sponsor to understand the PMBOK (project management body of knowledge) and all of its artifacts and processes.  It is up to the project manager to make that translation.  Executive sponsors on the other hand have the responsibility to ensure that the project manager makes that translation.”

The Standish Group points out that the executive sponsor is “the owner of the project. As the owner of the project, the full weight and responsibilities of the success or failure of the project falls squarely on his or her shoulders. The executive sponsor, for better or worse, owns the outcome. The executive sponsor has no right to abdicate his or her executive responsibility. He or she cannot blame the project manager, the IT executives, users, stakeholders, reluctant peers, vendors, or software developers.

“The sole responsibility for a successful outcome rests on the shoulders of the executive sponsor.  The sponsor may not be an executive of the organisation, but he or she is the chief executive of the project. The word ‘executive’ symbolises a higher level of responsibility. It is more powerful than just ‘sponsor.'”

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, IT projects

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Universal Credit: who’ll be responsible if it goes wrong?

Posted on 27/03/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

When asked whether Universal Credit will work, be on budget and on time, Ian Watmore, Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Office, gave a deft reply. He told Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke on 13 March 2012:

“From where I sit today, I think all the signs are very positive. I am never going to predict that something is going to be on time and on budget until it is.”

If the plans do not fall into place who, if anyone, will be responsible? In theory it’ll be Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. But as Watmore told the Public Administration Committee, there are several other organisations involved. Although the DWP and HMRC are building the IT systems, the success of Universal Credit also relies on local authorities, which are overseen by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

There are also the Cabinet Office and the Treasury whose officials seek to “ensure that what is going on is appropriate” said Watmore.

If Univeral Credit goes awry all the departments may be able to blame the private sector: the employers that must pass PAYE information to HMRC so that the Revenue’s Real-Time Information element of Universal Credit can work.

David Gauke is the minister responsible for HMRC so would he take some of the blame if Real-Time Information didn’t work, or was not on budget, or was delayed?

Or would the main IT suppliers Accenture and IBM take any of the blame? Highly unlikely, whatever the circumstances.

There is also a dependency on the banks.

But nothing is wrong … is it?

All those putatively responsible for Universal Credit continue to say that all is going well.

Duncan Smith told the House of Commons on 5 March 2012:

“We are making good progress towards the delivery of universal credit in 2013, and I have fortnightly progress meetings with officials and weekly reports from my office. I also chair the universal credit senior sponsorship group, which brings together all Government Departments and agencies that are relevant to the delivery of universal credit.

“Design work is well under way and is being continually tested with staff and claimants, and the development of the necessary IT systems will continue in parallel.”

He said that universal credit will reduce complexity by putting together all the benefits that are relevant to people going back to work – though benefit systems that are not relevant to the coalition’s “Work programme” will not be included in the DWP’s Universal Credit IT consolidation.

To reduce risks Universal Credit will be phased in over four years from October 2013, each stage bringing in a different group of claimants.

But …

Campaign4Change has asked the DWP to publish its various reports on the progress of Universal Credit and it has refused, even under the Freedom of Information Act. It seems the DWP’s secretiveness is partly because all of the risks related to Universal Credit have not been mitigated. We will report more on this in the next few days.

Meanwhile to try and answer the question in our headline: who’ll be responsible if Universal Credit goes wrong? The answer is: the private sector probably. Or rather nobody in the public sector.

Can hundreds of millions be spent on Universal Credit in an agile way?

Universal Credit suppliers Accenture and IBM look to India for skills.

Is Universal Credit a brilliant idea that’s bound to fail?

Universal Credit latest

Universal Credit and the banks.

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, capacity building, change, change management, Freedom of Information, Government IT, IBM, India, IT projects, local government, managing change, managing outsourced services, openness and transparency, outsourcing, oversight, Politics, procurement, project management, public sector, Real-Time Information, reducing cost strategically, risk, Universal Credit

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IT crisis management – an ongoing NHS case study

Posted on 20/03/2012 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

When a public-facing go-live goes wrong should communications be neutral in tone – or accentuate the positive?

On 8 December 2011 North Bristol NHS Trust went live with the Cerner Millennium electronic patient records system under the NPfIT programme.

At first Trust staff thought the difficulties were confined to a mix-up over outpatient appointments but it later transpired that there were 16 “clinical incidents” between 1 December 2011 and 17 January 2012 that were related to the Cerner Millennium implementation.

The Trust has published regular public information notices on the benefits, expected benefits, and problems arising from the Cerner implementation.

Reassuring in tone, the notices have made no mention of anything more potentially serious than administrative “issues”:  non-existent appointments were set up and letters sent to patients in error. The notices said that though the “issues” caused disruption and frustration, patient safety had not been compromised. The Trust apologised to staff and patients.

Clinical incidents

No mention was made in the notices of staff having reported clinical incidents in which the new patient records system was a causal factor. The NHS usually categorises  each clinical incident as a  “near miss” or “actual harm”.

In Campaign4Change’s various conversations with the North Bristol Trust over the potential seriousness or otherwise of its IT problems, one thing has been clear: it is pleased with the level of public information it has given out over the problems:

–       regularly-updated messages on its website,

–       briefings to the media including interviews for regional BBC and ITV channels by Ruth Brunt, the Trust’s chief executive,

–       board papers,

–       on-time answers to requests under the Freedom of Information Act

–       leaflets and posters placed in outpatient clinics and on car parking machines explaining that the Trust was implementing a new computer system and apologising for any delays patients may experience

The Trust also gave GPs a dedicated telephone number, fax number and email address for GPs or their patients to contact for further advice.

Profuse public information

We agree that the Trust has run a diligent public information campaign; and its communications staff have always responded quickly to our calls –  and with the documents we requested. The staff were frank in answering our questions. They told us that no decision has been taken yet on whether the Trust will publish the results of an independent inquiry into the Cerner implementation.

But if the Trust doesn’t publish the lessons from its Cerner implementation, it may wish to be reminded of a warning by the Local Health Board of Merthyr Tidfil, at the top on its Clinical Incident Reporting Policy paper: –  To err is human; to cover up is unforgivable; to fail to learn is inexcusable.         

If the Trust does not publish how will others learn from its mistakes?

Accentuate the positive?

The quantity of public information released by North Bristol NHS Trust is not an issue – but how informative is  it? Does the wider culture of the Trust still force staff to accentuate the positive?

The first of the Trust’s website statements on the problems of the Cerner implementation came about five weeks after the go-live. The opening sections of the statement made no mention of any problems. Indeed a series of bullet points listed the benefits of the system:

  • Patient records will now be securely stored electronically on a single system, replacing paper records.
  • Authorised clinicians can quickly find and share information on patients and their medical history and no longer rely on paper filing records.
  • Clinicians will also be able to access records at the patient’s bedside and can input information and statistics immediately.
  • Patients will no longer have to repeat their details to different clinicians as they will be accessible in one place.
  • Tests and outpatient appointments can be set up immediately with the patient.

The Trust’s website statement went on to say that “many”wards as well as A&E at Frenchay Hospital [Bristol] are using the new system.

Only if you’ve read this far will you see a reference to problems.

“However, we have experienced some unexpected problems in the last few weeks with outpatient appointments…”

“Huge improvements”

The current media statement is, again, more upbeat than neutral.  The vague mention of problems is countered by the equally vague claim of “huge” improvements.

“At North Bristol NHS Trust we have been implementing a new electronic patient record system to replace an outdated, less efficient system. Our wards, two minor injuries units, the Emergency Department, theatres and maternity are using the new system.

“However, we have experienced some unexpected problems with some of our outpatient clinics resulting in non-existent appointments to be set up and letters sent to patients in error. Our priority is always patient safety and we are clear that this has not been compromised.

“These issues have caused disruption and frustration for our patients and our staff and we recognise that this has not delivered the level of service that we expect, and the public expect, from us. We apologise wholeheartedly for that.

“Our staff have shown real commitment, hard work and dedication to continue to deliver patient care. Our Information Management & Technology Team worked very hard to rectify these problems as quickly as possible and we have seen huge improvements.

“The system in all outpatient clinics has now been rebuilt and relaunched. These clinics are now in a position to effectively use the new electronic records system. We anticipate there will be a further transition period for staff in those clinics. We firmly believe that the new system, once fully implemented, will improve services for our patients and provide real value.”

Campaign4Change pointed out to North Bristol that board papers on the troubled Cerner implementations at Barts and The London were commendably detailed and informative.

Barts had referred breaches of government targets on waiting times, complaints from patients, delays in the reporting of statutory and other trust performance information, extra costs, losses of income because of reduced activity, and the effect of data errors. There has been little of any of this from North Bristol’s public information campaign.

Freedom of information

Indeed North Bristol has refused to answer questions that were asked under the FOI Act by D Haverstock of the South West Whistleblowers Health Action Group.

The Trust refused Haverstock’s requests for:

–        a copy of your Cerner implementation plan, including pilot

–        the criteria on which the go-live decision was taken

–       a copy of the issues log for the implementation, with a full history of closed and open items.

–        reports on Cerner Project Board/Steering Committee meetings.

The Trust did give Haverstock a vague answer to her question on whether the Trust will have to take over the running costs of Cerner from 2015 when the Department of Health’s NPfIT contract with BT ends.

The Trust said the running costs for Cerner will become the Trust’s responsibility from October 2015 – but it doesn’t know for certain what the costs will be.

“The exact costs are still being calculated, but will be around the same levels as our previous patient administration system, we estimate,” said the Trust.

North Bristol declined to answer Haverstock’s other questions because “at this time the Trust feels that to answer your questions regarding the Cerner Millennium implementation would compromise our position with BT and Cerner”.

Rightly, Haverstock challenges the Trust’s use of the word “feels”. Rejections of FOI requests should be based on facts not its feelings.

Says Haverstock in her request to the Trust for an internal review: “Subjective feelings are not a valid reason for rejecting an FOIA request. What is your objective, evidence base for rejecting this request? [Thank to Theyworkforyou.com for this information.]

Comment

Poorly-designed health IT can kill, according to a US Institute of Medicine report “Health IT and Patient Safety Building Safer Systems for Better Care” in November 2011.

The report says:

“Poorly designed health IT can create new hazards in the already complex delivery of care.

“Although the magnitude of the risk associated with health IT is not known, some examples illus­trate the concerns.

“Dosing errors, failure to detect life-threatening illnesses, and delaying treatment due to poor human–computer interactions or loss of data have led to serious injury and death …”

There’s no evidence that the problems at North Bristol have caused any harm to patients. Indeed the Trust, in reporting the clinical incidents in response to a BBC’s reporter’s FOI request, says its “robust safeguarding processes, as well as additional checks and balances in all departments” have “ensured that clinical safety was not compromised and no patients were put at risk”.

It adds: “Our priority is always patient safety and there is no indication that this has been affected.”

But would we know if patient safety had been affected? In its public information campaign the Trust has been prolific. But the accent on the positive, rather than a neutral and factual account of the specific problems, has left us with little confidence that all the truth has yet come out.

In an IT-related crisis it is not a mass of information that the public and media regard as helpful but specific answers to specific questions. Has North Bristol managed its IT-related crisis well? Up to a point, Lord Copper.

MP questions costs of North Bristol Cerner system

Sir David Nicholson challenged on North Bristol’s Cerner costs

North Bristol system has more problems than anticipated.

North Bristol hits appointment problems

Cerner system “too entrenched” to be scrapped.

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Posted in change management, health, health records, IT projects, managing change, NHS, npfit, operational issues, outsourcing, Politics, procurement, project management, public sector, public services, supplier relationships

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M&A-led IT change project creates integration challenge for United Airlines

Posted on 19/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) frequently create IT project and change management headaches when companies’ systems have to be integrated.

The latest example of a system migration creating a change headache appears to be United Airlines’ adoption of Continental Airlines’ reservations platform, as the New York Times recently reported.

The New York Times said that United Airlines suffered service problems including flight delays, faulty kiosks and jammed phone lines as it tried to work through technical problems in its efforts to combine the United and Continental reservation systems. The two companies first announced their merger in May 2010.

The United and Continental problems appear to mirror the problems that US Airways Group experienced when it tried to  combine the reservations systems of America West Airlines and US Airways following a merger in 2005.

Related Links

A Mergers & Acquisitions Playbook for CIOs, Part 1

A Mergers & Acquisitions Playbook for CIOs, Part 2

Fliers’ Alert: United, Continental merger comes Saturday

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, IT projects, M&A, managing change, project management

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Change division helps Bendigo Bank transform IT project outlook

Posted on 14/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

A report from Australia has suggested that scrapping the chief information officer’s (CIO) role and replacing it with a change division enabled Bendigo Bank in Australia to slash its IT project failure rate.

According to an article in ITNews, establishing the change division  prompted better project delivery priorities and outcomes over the past two years, and may have  improved the rate of successful projects by 50 percent.

ITNews reported that, “In early 2010, the bank’s CIO Andrew Watts became the executive of a new ‘change’ division, which included 140 technologists, such as business analysts and project managers.

“Those technologists joined some 60 staff from elsewhere in the business, with the division aimed at overseeing business architecture and project delivery across ‘people, process and technology’.

“Other technologists formed a rebranded ‘technology services’ team, led by general manager Gary Doig and charged with managing the bank’s IT operations.”

Bendigo Bank believes that high business ownership across its projects has become  one of the most important foundations to deliver project success.

Related Links

Reuters: Banks team up to cut tech spend burden

ITNews (Australia) site

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Posted in change, change management, CIO, IT projects

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Lessons from “stupid” NHS IT scheme – Logica boss

Posted on 13/03/2012 | 1 comment

Some wise words from Andy Green, CE of Logica, on lessons from the NPfIT and other failures

By Tony Collins

Andy Green, CE, Logica

Andy Green, chief executive of Logica, speaking to the BBC’s Evan Davis about the NHS National Programme for IT, NPfIT, said:

“It is a stupid thing for the supply chain to have answered, and it’s a stupid thing for the customer to have asked for.”

Green was speaking on Radio 4’s The Bottom Line about corporate “cock-ups and conspiracies”. Other guests were Phil Smith, chief executive of Cisco UK and Ireland, and entrepreneur Luke Johnson.

Green, who joined Logica as CEO in January 2008, said he was in one of the bidders for the NPfIT when he was at BT.

The plan, he said, had been to put the same system into every hospital but later foundation hospitals were able to opt out of the NPfIT.

“Half way through [the NHS IT programme] foundation hospitals were invented,  and suddenly foundation hospitals did not have to go with what the NHS said at all”.

He added: “There were fundamental errors in the whole procurement process, and then real difficulty in delivering what had been promised.”

Evan Davis said the NHS IT scheme had cost billions, achieved little and had been running for years. He asked Green: “What’s the story?”

Green said some things went well including the supply of a network that connects pharmacies and doctors. But …

“What  had been promised by the supply chain was fantastic software that had not been designed yet that was going to completely revolutionise hospitals and delivering that proved to be horrendous… in the end it is foolish to set out on a programme that is going to take seven years with a fixed procurement up front, which says we all know everything about it …”

Lessons

Green spoke of the need for the supplier to understand exactly what the customer wants and whether it is deliverable before the parties agree to draw up a project specification.

“I think the world is beginning to learn about incrementalism. Let’s do something that we can all see and understand.

“Some of our clients we now work with in common teams – we call it co-management – and only when we have worked out exactly what is going to work in the client, and we can deliver, do we specify it as a project.

“Those things tend to go a lot better. We have got used to the fact that we don’t know everything.”

Luke Johnson

Luke Johnson, who is a former chairman of Channel 4, criticised IT suppliers for not getting it right often enough.  “I have bought quite a lot of projects and been involved as a customer many times… As a customer it is a very scary thing because clearly you are not an expert. Your providers are experts and yet they do not seem to be able to get it right often enough it seems to me, given how much they charge.”

Green said there is a high failure rate in the IT industry. “The client sets out one view at the beginning and then they have to change. The sensible defence to this is the partitioning into smaller items and relationships.

“We bluntly always think of our clients over the long run. You need to know people so that you can sit down and have a decent conversation. Too often when these things start to go wrong everybody runs for the contract. Experienced buyers and sellers do not do that: they run for each other and they talk it through, and they work it out, and they put it back on track.

“It’s value that matters. It’s doing something that really changes Patisserie Valerie’s business. [Luke Johnson is chairman of Patisserie Valerie.] What can you do that would transform that. If you can get that done, then if it over-runs by 20% it probably does not matter.”

Luke Johnson: “It depends how much money you’ve got.”

Lowest-price bids

Phil Smith, Cisco

Phil Smith of Cisco said government often has the biggest problems because “they squeeze so much in procurement there is little good value and goodwill left”.He said that on good projects problems are tackled by cooperation but “if every piece of value has been squeezed out before you procure it, your only option is to get something back from it”.

Beware procurement experts

Johnson said if procurement experts take control, and their mantra is to save money, it can often lead to trouble. “I fear that in many aspects of business, it gets down exclusively to price rather than value.

“Quality is out the window. They [procurement experts] can show a saving so they have justified their bonus but the supplier may be rubbish.”

Green said government is in a difficult position when a project starts to go wrong. “You are stuck in a procurement and the poor individual responsible is almost certainly facing a union or a consumer group or a doctor who doesn’t want the thing to happen anyway.”

Evan Davis made the valid point that the costs of projects in the public sector have to be underestimated to get approved. Realistic estimates would be rejected as too costly.

“… The person who is championing this project has to demonstrate to superiors that it is not too expensive. It is only by taking the cheapest bid and starting the thing off that you can sell the project higher up and of course down the line it costs a heck of a lot more.”

Luke Johnson: “We all know in many sectors there are providers that will take things at cost or even less with a view that they will somehow bulk it out and make a margin on the way. They know the client will need variations.

Innovation means taking risks

Luke Johnson: “If you want an innovative society, if you want one that is willing to take risks, to generate new technologies, new jobs, new businesses, then it involves failures and cock-ups.

“I think the British have got vastly better in recent years in accepting that as part of the journey and that is incredibly healthy.”

BBC R4’s The Bottom Line – Cock-ups and conspiracies.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, health records, IT projects, IT-related failures, managing change, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, operational issues, private sector lessons for the public sector, procurement, project management, supplier relationships

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SMEs – when to choose them and when not

Posted on 07/03/2012 | 1 comment

By Ian Makgill

The key to giving business to SMEs is to understand when SME suppliers can meet the needs of government and when it is best not to try and resist the gravitational pull of a large supplier.  

Some of this is obvious.  You wouldn’t expect the government to award banking services or insurance contracts to an SME. On the other hand, there is no real reason why legal services or consulting contracts can’t be provided almost entirely by SMEs, with only a couple of larger providers required for national programmes with multiple sites. In fact, it is a great shame that Government Procurement Service’s (GPS) new tender for consulting services does not utilise the regional model that they’ve previously used for temporary medical staff.

GPS has scored a couple of hits with SMEs, firstly with the appointment of Redfern Travel as the preferred travel management provider and secondly, with the choice to let the G-Cloud IT framework. It may be that Redfern ceases to meet the exact criteria of being an SME once the contract is fully embedded in Central Government, but that’s the whole point, to drive growth through smaller businesses. The G-Cloud framework provides a meaningful opportunity for SME suppliers to sell complex services to government, and may also help government to break their addiction to monolithic, large scale IT projects (as typified by the CSA’s latest IT tender with 90,000 specified requirements.)

Cloud services offer a remarkable opportunity for small teams to serve millions of people. A good example is 37signals, a Chicago web design company that created a project management tool called Basecamp. Its team of 32 staff currently service three million customers.

It is equally important to know when not to try and counter market forces.

Take agency staff.

We’ve been doing some very detailed work in this area, and there is an inexorable move towards using large, national suppliers. These suppliers can provide much more competitive margins and better services and data to public bodies. The market is healthy in terms of competition and there is room for smaller suppliers to become second tier suppliers to some of the national companies. Clearly the option to become a second tier supplier, or to lose their existing business is not good news for smaller suppliers, but with such strong benefits available to public bodies it would make no sense to try and resist developments that are affecting the whole market.

There needs to be a much deeper understanding of the characteristics of contracts that can be fulfilled by SME suppliers and a comprehensive strategy to follow up on that work, and to prevent government issuing restrictive tenders that see SMEs unnecessarily barred from doing business with Government, or spin-out mutuals facing procurement hurdles that are inappropriate to them. Until that strategic work is done, then there is a risk that the appointment of SMEs to government contracts will be haphazard, with a few notable successes and far too many failures.

Ian Makgill is the Managing Director of Govmark, researchers who specialise in government contracting.

Download Govmark’s report into agency staff in local government

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, G-Cloud, government, mutuals, procurement, public sector, SME

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Shared services disaster: a gain for some officials and ERP suppliers?

Posted on 07/03/2012 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

Today an impressive report by the National Audit Office shows in detail how various shared services ventures in central government have, over time, cost rather than saved money.

Five shared services centres studied by the NAO have cost £1.4bn so far; they were supposed to have saved £159m by 2010-11 but the net cost has been £255m. Setting up the centres since 2004 has been good, though, for some suppliers (and officials who wanted to gain new skills in Oracle and SAP enterprise resource planning systems).

The Cabinet Office has now intervened and plans a new shared services strategy, based on the DWP [Oracle v11i ERP) and Department for Transport [SAP ERP] offering independent major shared service centres to departments and agencies.

One of the urgent drivers for the Cabinet Office’s publishing a new strategy in July 2011 was that three shared service centres face an investment of £47m to upgrade their Oracle ERP systems before November 2013, says the NAO.

“The current version of Oracle will not be supported by the manufacturer past this date,” says the NAO. “This means that if their core system fails, there is a high risk that they would not be able to re-instate it quickly. This gave the Cabinet Office an opportunity to see if it could derive better value-for-money options for shared services.”

Saving £32m on Oracle upgrade costs?

The Cabinet Office expects its new plans to save £32m on Oracle upgrade costs, says the NAO. Indeed the Cabinet Office has questioned whether departments need to use large ERP systems. It acknowledges that smaller, simpler software solutions may be appropriate, says the NAO.

Civil servants in search of new ERP skills rather than saving money?

The NAO report hints that civil servants at the five service centres might have wanted to implement new Oracle or SAP ERP software more than to save money.

Says the NAO: “The [shared service] Centres have prioritised increasing the number of customers or implementing new software, rather than working with existing customers to drive efficiency… There are other options to reduce costs in addition to increasing the number of customers or implementing a new ERP system.”

Indeed the NAO questions why the service centres bought big and expensive ERP systems that are now under-used, without looking at smaller and simpler accounting packages.

“These ERP systems [installed at five shared service centres studied by the NAO] are complex and it is not easy to modify them when needs change, such as when an organisation is restructured or processes are redesigned.

“We found the Centres are only using a small part of the capability their ERP systems provide. The systems are capable of handling larger volumes of transactions and more services and it is not clear why such expensive solutions were bought. Other smaller and simpler accounting packages were not looked at to see if they may have provided the required functionality.”

Concludes the NAO:

“The shared services initiative has not so far delivered value for money for the taxpayer. Since the Gershon Review recommended the creation of shared services in 2004, the Government has spent £1.4 billion against a planned £0.9 billion on the five Centres we examined.

“By creating complex services that are overly tailored to individual departments, government has increased costs and reduced flexibility. In addition, it has failed to develop the necessary benchmarks against which it could measure performance. The Cabinet Office has issued an ambitious new shared services strategy to address these issues.”

Failing to standardise ways of working

Shared services are about standardising ways of working, not running separate services for every client but the NAO found that the five centres replicated old ways of working.

“The services provided are overly customised. We found shared services to be more complex than we expected. They are overly tailored to meet customer needs. This limits the ability for the Centres to make efficiencies as they have an overhead of running multiple systems and processes.”

Big cheques to big ERP suppliers?

The NAO said departments have wasted money on ERP systems – and now plan to spend more on DRP systems.:

“The software systems used in the Centres have added complexity and cost. All the Centres we visited use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software systems. These are complex and have proven to be expensive. They are designed to manage all the information generated by an organisation by using standard processes. These systems work most effectively with large volumes of heavily automated transactions.

“With a lack of scale and usage in some Centres, limited standardisation and low levels of automation, the cost to establish, maintain and upgrade these systems is high. As a result two Centres intend to totally re-implement their existing systems with simpler, standard ERP software, despite the significant investment already made.

“All the Centres acknowledge they need to simplify and standardise their systems and reduce customisation.”

Cabinet Office took a back seat instead of driving sensible change

Says the NAO: “The Cabinet Office and Civil Service Steering Board could have done more to ensure shared services were implemented appropriately. While the Cabinet Office led by example in initiating their own shared service arrangements, more could have been done to challenge the performance achieved by customers and providers.

“They could have established reliable cost and performance benchmarks and done more to document best practice and lessons learned for customers. Also, they could have done more to remove the barriers to departments and agencies joining shared services.

“The Cabinet Office relied on a collaborative model of governance, which was consistent with the role of central government at the time. Under this model it was left to individual departments to implement shared services and eight shared services have been established. There has been little actual sharing of services between departments…”

Should officials have been forced to take part in shared services?

“Departments have struggled to fully roll-out shared services across all their business units and arm’s-length bodies,” says the NAO. “This is because participation has largely been voluntary. Of the five Centres we examined, three had not attracted the customers they had expected and two had potential spare capacity of 50 per cent.”

Cabinet Office is trying to repair the damage

Using DWP and DfT centres the Cabinet Office plans to have two independent shared service centres and a host of sub centres. But the NAO suggests the strategy may fail unless the Cabinet Office mandates the use of the centres. [But there’s no point in mandating change unless working practices are standardised.  If they cannot be standardised shared services may end up – again – costing more.]

Says the NAO  “The Cabinet Office did not have the powers to mandate shared services. Without a mandate, we do not think that coherent shared services are likely to be achieved. If there is an overall value-for-money case for the taxpayer, the Cabinet Office should seek appropriate authority to mandate the shared services strategy and its implementation.

“The Cabinet Office should also make sure that there is clear accountability for implementing its new shared services strategy.”

MPs ignored

“…the Committee of Public Accounts set out recommendations (on shared services) for the Cabinet Office in 2008,” says the NAO. “None of the recommendations have been fully implemented. All are relevant to shared services today.”

The five shared service centres under NAO scrutiny – and their ERP

• The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Centre provides services to 16,000 customer users (full-time equivalents)7 from the Department and 13 of its agencies. Enterprise Resource Planning System: Oracle 11i, upgrade to Oracle v12 in 2012-13.

• The Department for Transport (DfT) Centre provides services for 14,000 customer users from the Department and four of its agencies. SAP ERP.

• The DWP Centre provides services for 130,000 customer users from the Department, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Education. Main site Norcross. ERP system: Oracle 11i, upgrade to Oracle v12 planned in 2012-13.

• The Ministry of Justice Centre manages two separate systems – serving 47,000 customer users for its National Offender Management Service and 27,000 for the Home Office. Enterprise Resource Planning System: Oracle 11i, upgrade to Oracle v12 in 2012-13 and plans to completely re-implement its system to remove all customisation.

• Research Councils UK Centre provides services to 11,000 customer users from seven Research Councils. ERP is Oracle 12.

Three major shared service centres not under NAO scrutiny

• The Ministry of Defence’s Defence Business Services, which was established in July 2011. ERP is Oracle 11i. An upgrade to Oracle v12 in planned for 2012-13.

• The Department of Health NHS Shared Business Services Ltd (joint venture with Steria) which does not provide services to central government. (ERP is Oracle v12)

• HMRC which set up a shared service centre – but no other departments used it. ERP is SAP.

Comment:

Anyone reading the NAO report could be forgiven for thinking that civil servants setting up shared service centres have aimed to fail, perhaps to prove to ministers that major change within central government is a bad idea. We doubt this.

What is more likely is that civil servants, encouraged by some suppliers, thought it a good idea to buy big ERP systems from which they thought savings would naturally flow. But big has not proved to be better. When will this message get through? Isn’t it time for civil servants to stop throwing money at big suppliers?

[And there may be some substance in the NAO’s hint that some civil servants have preferred to work on big ERP systems rather than save money. Having strong ERP skills is an insurance against job loss.]

NAO report  

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Posted in capacity building, change management, collaboration, ERP, Government IT, IT projects, Oracle ERP, public services, reducing cost strategically, reforms, SAP, shared services, supplier relationships

From The Sun: “Run fire service like John Lewis”

Posted on 06/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

It’s not often that the prospects for mutuals – or John Lewis, for that matter – make it into The Sun. But this story takes the mutuals bandwagon into areas it hasn’t been previously.

The Sun’s story – ‘Run fire service like John Lewis – refers to the Cleveland Fire Brigade, which reportedly ‘plans to turn itself into a mutual — just like John Lewis stores where staff share profits.’

The story quotes Cleveland’s chief fire officer Ian Hayton saying: “Combining a public service ethos with an entrepreneurial drive for growth will empower our staff.”

It also quotes Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude saying, “We are opening up public services to get more bang for the taxpayers’ buck.

“Frontline workers know best how to do their job. That’s why mutuals can be the best way to run things.”

However, an article on Public Finance makes the point that the ‘mutual option’ was always a non-starter for public audit.

It argues that the Audit Commission’s abandonment of the ‘mutual option’ for audit follows a weekend disclosure that police forces are being pressured by the Home Office ‘to outsource great swathes of front as well as back-office work.’

Audit Commission: the feeling’s not mutual

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services, social economy, social enterprise

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